David William Pye OBE (18 November 1914 – 1 January 1993), was Professor of Furniture Design at

The Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It off ...

, 1964–1974. Among his pupils were David Colwell (Trannon), Richard la Trobe Bateman, Charles Dillon, Jane Dillon, Floris van den Broecke and Roger Dean. Pye was an accomplished wood-turner and carver, but also worked on the theory of design and handcraft. In 1991 he was awarded the

Sir Misha Black Sir Misha Black (16 October 1910 – 11 October 1977) was a British-Azerbaijani architect and designer. In 1933 he founded with associates in London the organisation that became the Artists' International Association. In 1943, with Milner Gray ...

award and was added to the

College of Medallists The College of Medallists is an association of recipients of The Sir Misha Black Awards, The Sir Misha Black Medal for Distinguished Services in Design Education. Misha Black (1910–1977) was a pioneer of design in United Kingdom, Britain. The ...

Works on the theory of design and handcraft

In the 1960s Pye wrote two major and influential works:Both were published in

John Lewis John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville ...

's influential Studio Vista / Reinhold series. See Appendix 3 of * ''The Nature of Design'' (later ''The Nature & Aesthetics of Design''), 1964 () * ''The Nature and Art of Workmanship'', 1968 () One of Pye's best known concepts is "the workmanship of risk", by which he means "workmanship using any kind of technique or apparatus, in which the quality of the result is not predetermined, but depends on the judgment, dexterity and care which the maker exercises as he works" (''The Nature and Art of Workmanship'', p. 4). Pye proposed that we build things to effect change. Everything occurs within a system of changes and structures and is not divisible from the system in which it operates. Most designed objects are, in his opinion, purely palliative, and very few objects truly enable new activities and behavior. We can walk instead of taking the car but we cannot fly instead of taking a plane. He also points out that design is limited by economy not technique. Technique far outstrips affordability. Because of this all design is a

trade off A trade-off (or tradeoff) is a situational decision that involves diminishing or losing one quality, quantity, or property of a set or design in return for gains in other aspects. In simple terms, a tradeoff is where one thing increases, and anot ...

and to that extent a failure. Where that failure is allowed to enter in is an arbitrary result of the process of designing. He points out that much of design proceeds under the assumption that tools can bring us happiness but in his opinion tools can only avoid unhappiness. In thinking that tools can equate to happiness the tools are seen as separating cause and effect which are inseparable. This belief is held because design is conceived at a certain level of isolation from outside factors, an isolation which does not or cannot exist in the world.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pye, David 1914 births 1993 deaths British furniture designers Officers of the Order of the British Empire